"O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself
a king of infinite space,
were it not that I have bad dreams."
- Hamlet
Act II scene ii

3 March 2009

Goodwin

Sir Fred Goodwin pictured recently outside his Edinburgh mansion

To enlighten non-UK visitors, Sir Fred Goodwin was until very recently the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He presided over record losses - well over £20 billion through unwise financial marriages and then, cunningly, wriggled his way out of his post to retire at fifty years old with a £690,000 a year pension for life. And they say that crime doesn't pay!

This is part of what Wikipedia had to say about the greedy pig:-

In 1990 Goodwin married Joyce Elizabeth McLean, and they have two children. One of his hobbies is restoring classic cars - the first, a Hillman Imp, bought from the proceeds of a summer job; another, a Triumph Stag he spent years restoring. He is also a keen golfer and Formula One racing fan. Other pastimes include shooting - once a year he would go on shooting trips to Spain with Santander chairman Emilio Botin....

FRED Manuel! Buenas dias! Nice to see you again!

EMILIO It's not Manuel! He was that stupid waiter in Fawlty Towers. I'm Emilio. Remember?

FRED Och aye. Si Si Amigo!

EMILIO And don't try to talk in Spanish Fred! You're as bad at Spanish as you are at restoring vintage cars!

FRED Whaddya mean?

EMILIO Well that Triumph Stag! You spent years on it and it's still a battered old rust bucket.

FRED Screw you Jimmy! Ye greasy dago! You try restoring an old banger with trotters!

EMILIO Talk to me like that senor and there'll be no shooting today!

FRED What are we shooting anyway?

EMILIO Nothing! Well nothing with bullets! That's just what you tell Joyce. We're going down the zona rosa. Gonna get hammered Fred The Shred and then we gonna find ourselves a couple of hot senoritas.

7 comments:

If I were Fred, I'd be giving the money back, keeping a low profile and hoping never to be in the papers again. Which is probably one reason why he's got 16 million and I haven't. I think we should barbecue him. I bet you know what happened to Edward II - a fine example here I feel.

Yes, Anonymous, my father, who was a Communist, always said that too, and there's truth in it. But within every system there are people who are just extra corrupt, and play it for all it's worth, and he's one of them, so let's vilify him as much as we like. Which in my case is quite a lot.

DAPHNE For those who don't know what happened to Edward II - "On the night of 11 October 1327while lying in on a bed [the king] was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his secret parts so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines..." MALC Sorry for inadvertently insulting pigs in this manner. I know you are very close to pigs - especially sows.MOPSA Sir Fred sausages would surely be of the tiny cocktail variety.ANONYMOUS (MESSALINA) Vilification is massively under-rated as a pleasant pastime...but I hear what you are saying - Goodwin's piggishness is characteristic of capitalists self-seekers.

I always thought of Sir Fred as a Fat Cat rather than a pig. But there are other villans (fat cats/pigs) in this play - the board members who boosted his pension to £705,000 - about twice as much as they were obliged to pay him. I am waiting for them to be exposed, too.

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.